From Ohio Sea Grant:
Lorain, OH - Ohio Sea Grant has launched a new interactive website, Shipwrecks and Maritime Tales of the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail, available to browse at www.ohioshipwrecks.org .
The website was designed to help promote the protection of Lake Erie’s shipwrecks and increase awareness of its rich maritime history. With the help of Sea Grant Extension, divers now have the information necessary to discover shipwrecks in Lake Erie.
“There was a pressing need for a website such as this,” says Joe Lucente, Ohio Sea Grant Extension Educator. “Now an online database of Lake Erie shipwrecks exists for people to access and learn about Lake Erie’s maritime history or find a wreck to explore.”
The site gives those who may be unfamiliar with Lake Erie shipwrecks access to details of the wrecks in a convenient location. The hope is that people will be inspired to go out and explore the shipwrecks and enjoy the history and opportunities Lake Erie has to offer.
The website features the locations of many of the 277 known wrecks and more detailed information on 28 specific wrecks, including GPS coordinates, location information, and the history of each ship, as well as photographs. The interactive map allows users to browse and discover the locations of every known wreck, including the Morning Star, whose remains lie 70 feet under water after a collision with another ship in 1868. Some of the shipwreck listings feature underwater videos, so a website visitor can get a glimpse at the sites beneath the surface.
“Whether you are a seasoned scuba diver or a maritime history aficionado, we believe you will not only learn more about Lake Erie's maritime heritage but will also gain an increased respect for the need to preserve and protect Ohio's historic shipwrecks,” states Dave Kelch, Ohio Sea Grant Extension Specialist. The project is linked to the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail, one of 126 national scenic byways designated by the Federal Highway Administration. This signed route travels from Conneaut to Toledo and celebrates the natural resources and historic treasures along Lake Erie.
Lake Erie claims more shipwrecks than any other Great Lake with over 1,700. To date only 277 have been found, salvaged or located by divers. The remains of these wrecks lay scattered across the Lake’s floor and provide an exciting opportunity for outdoors people, tourists and scholars alike.
This project was jointly funded by the Ohio Lake Erie Commission and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Management.
Dave Kelch and Joe Lucente are two of 11 Ohio Sea Grant Extension agents located across Ohio’s Lake Erie counties. Ohio Sea Grant Extension is part of Ohio State University Extension and the Ohio Sea Grant College Program, one of 32 NOAA Sea Grant programs dedicated to the protection and sustainable use of marine and Great Lakes resources.
For more information about Ohio Sea Grant, visit www.ohioseagrant.osu.edu
Maumee, Ohio - What would make a fisherman stand waist deep in 50-degree water on a nippy April day? Fish, of course.
When it's Spring Run time on the Maumee River in northwest Ohio, up to 50,000 people, maybe more, arrive in the city of Maumee to participate in a seasonal ritual unparalleled on the Great Lakes.
Between late March and mid-April the Maumee swells from snowmelt and rain, opening the way for an estimated half-million walleye to swim upriver to spread their eggs among the protective gravel and cobblestone just below the Fallen Timbers Rapids.
Not surprisingly, that's exactly where you'll find the fishermen wading and waiting, rods clenched in their hands, landing nets tucked in the back of their waders.
Walleye "run" in practically every Lake Erie tributary. The Detroit, Sandusky, Portage, Huron and Vermilion rivers in northern Ohio and southern Michigan all have runs of varying sizes. But none compares to the Maumee for the number of fish or the hours that fishermen spend pursuing them.
To the uninitiated, the Spring Run is a strange spectacle. On West River Road, a scenic drive through Side Cut Metropark, vendors sell jigs made of lead balls attached to hooks with colorful plastic tails. Cars and trucks line both sides of the road. Bystanders stop to watch the anglers spaced an arm's length apart in each direction.
Early walleye are typically caught after the first of March, with the spawn generally peaking in early April and tapering off by the end of the month. White bass then move into the river to spawn in May.
Most spring run walleye anglers wade into the river and cast upstream using lead-head jigs with colored twister-tail bodies. Some cast from shore and still others fish from boats further downstream.
Current regulations allow fishermen to keep four walleye per day in March and April.
The estimated 400,000 to 500,000 walleye a year that crowd into the river is a tiny fraction of the estimated 60 million walleye in Lake Erie. But because each female broadcasts hundreds of thousands of eggs, the run is an important part of the Lake Erie "fish factory."
Ongoing research in Ohio is attempting to use DNA marking to identify fish that come from specific spawning grounds. Such information would allow the state to manage specific locations to maximize fish productions.
One reason Lake Erie is the Walleye Capital of the World is that two very different spawning habitats contribute to the population: the rivers and the reefs on the open lake. Each stocks a large number of fish and can make up for the other if one has a poor production year.
Each year, anglers spend between 36,000 and 250,000 hours fishing on the Maumee during the Spring Run, according to the Division of Wildlife. On the Sandusky River, "angler hours" range from 24,000 to 94,000 a year.
If the average angler spends three to three and one-half hours on each fishing trip, that means in peak years, such as 1990 when the quarter-million hours were logged on the Maumee, as many as 72,000 to 83,000 fishermen participate in the Spring Run. Those fishermen catch just 10 percent of the fish that make their way up the river to spawn -- on average about 40,000 to 50,000 fish per year.
During the spring run, Side Cut Metropark opens at sunrise, instead of the usual 7 a.m., to coincide with legal fishing hours on the Maumee.
Whatever your politics, lake lovers have reason to be excited about the prospects of Illinois Senator Barack Obama or New York Senator Hillary Clinton ending up in the Whitehouse -- the opportunity to have a president from a Great Lakes state. It would be the first time since Michigan's Gerald Ford left office in 1977. Other than Ford's three-year stint in the Oval Office, you'd have to go all the way back to FDR of New York (1933-1945) to find a commander-in-chief from one of the Great Eight.
-Scott
